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ADDRESSES. 




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CARLON 4H0LLENBECK PRINTERS. INDIANAPOLIS. 



FOUNDER' Sr DAY 

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Butler University,i4^ 



ADDRESSES 

DELIVERED IN THE UNIVERSITY CHAPEL, FEBRUARY 7th, 1882, 



Professor SCOT BUTLER, 
Eld. B. M. BLOUNT, President of the Board, and 
General JOHN COBURN. 



INDIANAPOLIS : 

■CAI4L0N & HOLLENBECK, PRINTERS AND BINDERS. 

1882. 



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At a meeting of the Board of Directors of Butler University, on 
motion of A. I. Hobbs, it was unanimously ordered "that the seventh 
day of February be observed as Founder's Day, and that the Faculty 
arrange for proper memorial services to be held at the University on 
that day." In carrying out this order, a suitable programme was ar- 
ranged, and the following Addresses were delivered before a large 
audience. One feature of the occasion was the presentation to the Uni- 
versity of a life-size portrait, in oil, of the late Chancellor Butler. The 
Addresses were noticeable as giving the purpose of Mr. Butler in assisting 
so liberally to found the University, the spirit of the present manage- 
ment, and an earnest advocacy of that thorough and Christian culture 
to which Chancellor Butler was so devoted. 

H. W. Everest, 
B. M. Blount, 
A. E. Benton, 
P. H. Jameson, 

Committee of Pahlieation. 



PRESENTATION ADDRESS. 



BY PROF. SCOT BUTLER. 



We Americans have high appreciation of the benefits 
of knowledge and education. The State provides facili- 
ties for the education of all the youth. Private insti- 
tutions are not wanting — so that it can scarcely happen 
that a young person, desirous of an education, fail of 
acquiring it. 

This is another educational institution. My friends, 
if it be not more, it fails of the high purpose of its foun- 
ders, and, in view of the large number of such institu- 
tions already established, is an unnecessary, a superfluous 
work. 

There is at this day a new gospel preached in the 
world — it is the gospel of what is called culture — and the 
culture of to-day is understood to be the product of the 
scientific and literary tendencies of the time. The ad- 
vocates of this new gospel believe not in an eternal obli- 
gation of right, but regard morality as a happy result 
of intellectual culture and development. Through cul- 
ture, clubs and art galleries and museums and lyceums 
and libraries and scientific associations, they are propos- 
ing to lift men up out of poverty and ignorance andsu- 
perstition and debauchery and crime, into a region of 
"■'sweetness and light." According to these, morality 



6 FOUNDER S DAY. 

is not to be taught as an obligation — it must be allowed 
to develop itself in the mind as an intellectual and aes- 
thetic result. 

The purpose of the founders of this institution, as ex- 
pressed in section III of its act of incorporation, was " to 
establish an institution of learning for the education of 
the youth," and "to teach and inculcate the Christian 
faith and Christian morality as taught in the sacred 
Scriptures." 

It will be observed that no antagonism is here ex- 
pressed to general culture ; only that that human mor- 
ality, in which God has no part, is not recognized, and 
intellectual culture is made to hold its proper place. It is 
not looked upon as an end in itself, but as a means for 
the bringing of man's nature into more perfect accord with 
the divine purposes. The Bible does not teach us to neg- 
lect the refining influences of society, literature, science 
and art, any more than it teaches us to despise the riches 
of the world, except as compared with the inestimable 
riches of the world to come. Christ condemned the rich 
man, not because he was rich, but because his riches 
were his all. The plan of education proposed in the* 
founding of this institution is not limited to merely 
scientific and literary- and aesthetic results, but, recogni- 
zing the spiritual necessities of our nature, it includes the 
religious element. 

The word culture, of which we make so frequent use, 
in its proper interpretation, illustrates strikingly the true 
course and end of all education. 

Gtltiire is an old word. The ancients used it, apply- 
ing it primarily to those mechanical operations whereby 
the soil is brought under subjection to the will of man, 
and made to yield up its fruits for his sustenance. 
Rising from this, it was applied to the more immediate 
and personal environment of man's ph3'sicial being, 
iiaving to do with his shelter and food and clothing, and 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 



all things that relate to the keeping of the body. Nexty 
it rose to the realm of intellectual life and activity, and 
finally it had to do with the worship of the gods. The 
word culture, then, thus interpreted, marks the course of 
human development. In its application to phj^sical 
things, it connects man with the lower order of being ; 
each step in its gradation removes him farther from the 
physical, brings him nearer to the spiritual. 

The Romans called religion so, from a word in their 
language meaning to bind fast. In that chain of de- 
velopment that is indicated in the true meaning of the 
word culture, religion is the last, the supreme link, bind- 
ing us fast to the eternal throne of God. 

The history of all the past shows how consistent with 
grossest immorality is a culture that is merely intellec- 
tual and Eesthetic. It may be that at no very distant day 
in our country, religious instruction, so far as it relates to 
the secular world, shall be banished to such educational 
institutions as may have been established by religious 
societies. In that day this universitv may be one of the 
bulwarks of the Christian faith. Then will the wisdom 
of its founders be confirmed. 

These may have been men in some cases not educated 
according to college standards — not cultured as the world 
calls culture — whom science had not initiated into her 
mysteries ; who knew not many tongues, who had not 
crossed seas and visited distant lands, to whom, perhaps, 
the art treasures of the old world would have been mean- 
ingless — men have they been, nevertheless, in view of 
whose broad understanding and high aims, and univer- 
sal philanthropy and sweet humility, some of us, more 
highly favored, might feel shame for ourselves. There 
is a wisdom whose beginning is the fear of the Lord ; 
there is a culture that comes of a high acceptance of the 
dispensations of Providence. The idols of intellectual 
culture are false and shallow and heart-mocking. God, 



8 founder's day. 

to his humblest worshiper, reveals himself in all the 
beauty of his majesty. A little world is this that shuts 
us in, its hollow darkness falling round us to the horizon's 
verge on every side ; the spirit that the knowledge of 
God has made free knows not limitation in time or space. 
Such live not in and for the present only ; they live for 
the future. The end of their ctilt is not exaltation of 
self — it is the fear of God and love for man. The best 
natures are those that feel that posterity relates to 
them, and are constrained by a power that is not of 
earth to spend themselves in its service. They de- 
serve our remembrance, and remembrance of them will 
bless us. They live not all for self. They measure not 
their acts by the few 3^ears that limit life's span. The 
results of their labors they leave to future generations. 

We have met to-day to do honor to the memory of 
one of the founders of this University. And the part 
has been assigned me, on behalf of those whom I repre- 
sent by family ties, of presenting to the Board of Direc- 
tors this, his portrait. Had he lived till to-day he would 
have completed his eighty-first year, but, half-way be- 
tween the eightieth and the eighty-first milestone of his 
life, wearied with the long way, he rested. 

The world has not so many wise men, it has not so 
many just men, it has not so many God-fearing men, it 
has not so man}- men of large views and liberal sympa- 
thies, it has not so many philanthropic men, — that it can 
afford to forget one when he is dead. 

It will be well for us, my friends, if in the administra- 
tion of the affairs of this institution we forget not the 
principles that this man, as much as any man, repre- 
sented — if we remember that this university was founded 
not, on the one hand, for the false ends of a purel}- 
intellectual "and aesthetic culture, nor, on the other 
as the training-school of a professional priesthood — not 
as the nursery of a misguided liberalism that ends in 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. - 9 

agnosticism and unfaith, nor as the missionary effort of 
a religious sect, dishonest and trifling in its methods of 
study, shallow and false in its pretensions of culture, 
but by precept, in a department specially devoted to that 
work, to teach to all men as men the Christian faith, and, 
in all its departments and everywhere, by the example 
of honorable conduct and thorough methods, and honest 
work, and absence of sham and pretense, to inculcate 
Christian moralit}'. 



ADDRESS IN RESPONSE. 



BY B. M. BLOUNT, PRESIDENT OF THE BOARD. 



Prof. Butler : It affords me great pleasure on be- 
half of the board of directors, to express to you, as the 
representative of the family of the late Chancellor of 
Butler Universit}^ our thanks for this invaluable memo- 
rial of his regard for the interests of this Institution. 

Words would be inadequate to express our apprecia- 
tion of the labors and sacrifices of Chancellor Butler, in 
behalf of the cause of a liberal Christian education. 
Largely through his energy, personal influence and 
sacrifice, was this Institution conceived, planned, and 
elevated to its present proud position, among the educa- 
tional institutions of this countr3^ 

For it he earnestly labored. For its success in fur- 
nishing the most ample opportunities for instruction in 
the liberal arts and sciences, and in the Christain faith, 
and Christian morals, he devoutly prayed. 

The one desire of his heart, and the cherished thought 
of his life was, that this Institution should be the source 
of blessing to the generations yet unborn. 

I here indulge the hope, that when we are permitted to 
look upon this faithful representation of the countenance 
and form of the noble dead, we may remember the 
purposes of his life, as unquestionably manifested in his 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. II 

deeds ; and, that that remembrance may perpetually 
stimulate those to whose guardian care the interests of 
this noble work have been committed, to so faithfully 
discharge their duty, that the fondest hopes of the 
founders may be perpetuall}^ realized. 

We take this occasion, therefore, to assure the family 
of our late honored head, of the high esteem in which 
we shall ever hold this — to us — precious memento. 

And we trust that it may be the one cementing tie 
that may ever hold together in harmonious co-operation 
those to whom the interests of this enterprise may from 
time to time be entrusted — 'that constant association with 
this faithful picture of Mr. Butler on the part of the 
young ladies and gentlemen who may be students in 
this college, maybe the means of lifting them above the 
grovelling pursuits of earth to emulate the exalted life 
of which they will thus be constantly reminded. 

Again, therefore, permit me, sir, to express to your- 
self and family our gratitude for this valuable present, 
with the assurance that it shall ever be cherished as one 
of the most valued treasures of the University. 



MEMORIAL ADDRESS. 



BY GEN. JOHN COBURN. 



Mr. President : When a man has achieved some 
signal success in an honorable way, or has rendered 
some great service to the people, nothing is more decor- 
ous than public reference to it. His birthday is asso- 
ciated with the deed, and furnishes to generation after 
generation the occasion for gratitude to bring its offer- 
ings to his memory. 

This, the birthday of Ovid Butler, will not soon be 
forgotten. He did that for which many thousands, for 
many years will not let his memory perish. He did his 
work in his own way, avoiding rather than seeking no- 
toriety, and did it so well that he became famous in spite 
of himself. His effort was to be useful, to elevate and 
purify society, to induce men to live a better life, to 
ward off the evils which ignorance, prejudice, avarice, 
and all the vices breed. For society he cleaned the 
fountain, he planted good seed, he fenced against rav- 
agers, he put up finger-boards at the crossings, he cut 
out the highways, he drained and cleared against mal- 
aria, he prepared for growth, for health, for progress, 
and for culture for all men. 

This was no light or pleasant service ; it had very 
little exhilaration in 'it ; it was slow in its results ; it was 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. I3; 

very irksome at times ; but he saw the end clearly, and 
traveled along patiently. He organized and inspired 
help ; he begot generous co-operation, he won by his 
sacrifices and devotion the hearts of many able and 
learned men, and joining with him, the influences of 
their labors are felt in a wide range and are multiplying 
rapidly. The crowning work of his life was the estab- 
lishment of the University that now bears his name and 
is a fitting monument to the labors and bounties of more 
than thirty years. 

Mr. Butler was born in the year 1801, in Augusta, 
New York, and in 1817 the family removed to Jennings 
county, in this State, where he resided until he arrived 
at the years of manhood. Here he taught school for a 
few years, and studied law. In 1825 he settled at Shel- 
byville, where he practiced his profession until 1836, 
when he removed to Indianapolis, which became his 
permanent residence. He continued in his practice 
here, having as partners, at diflerent times, Calvin 
Fletcher, Simon Yandes, and Horatio C. Newcomb, 
among the ablest and most prominent lawyers of the 
State. His business was extensive, and ver}^ lucrative, 
but owing to impaired health, he retired from the bar 
in 1849. 

He was married in 1827 to Cordelia Cole, who lived 
until the year 1838. He was again married to Mrs. 
Elizabeth A. Elgin in 1840, who still survives. No 
man was more fortunate in his domestic relations. As 
a lawyer, Mr. Butler excelled in the office. In the ar- 
gument of legal questions and the preparat-on of plead- 
ings, he was laborious and indefatigable. With firm- 
ness, perseverance, clearness of purpose and tenacity 
without a parallel, he pushed his legal business through 
the courts. With not many of the graces of the orator, 
he surpassed by dint of great exertion in the preparation 
of his cases, those who relied upon persuasive eloquence 



14 FOUNDER S DAY. 

or sudden strategy at the bar. Plain, quiet, gentle, 
modest, but solid and immovable, he was a formidable 
antagonist in the greatest cases that were tried during 
his practice. His style was strong and sententious ; 
without ornament, without humor, without elegance, 
but logical and convincing. His clients always got his 
best ability in the preparation and trial of their cases. 
His legal knowledge was general and comprehensive, 
his judgment sound, and his reasoning powers vigorous. 
He met few competitors at the bar combining so much 
industr}^, strength, perseverance and culture. He had 
the unbounded confidence of the communit}' in his com- 
mon sense, integrit}' and general capabilitv in his pro- 
fession. 

After his retirement from the bar, he devoted his life 
mainly to the interests of the Christian Church and of 
the Northwestern Christian University. But for a few 
years after the close of the Mexican war, while the 
questions as to the extension of slavery into the territo- 
ries acquired, were being agitated, he took an active part 
in politics. In 1848 he established a newspaper in In- 
dianapolis, called The Free Soil Banner^ which took 
radical ground against the extension of slavery and 
against slavery itself. The motto was "Free soil, free 
States, free men." He had been previously a Demo- 
crat. He served upon the Free Soil electoral ticket 
and upon important political committees, and took the 
stump in advocacy of his principles in the Presidential 
campaigns of 1848 and 1852. 

In 1852 he contributed the funds, in a great measure, 
to establish The Free Soil Democrat, a newspaper for 
the dissemination of his cherished views upon these 
questions. This was finally inerged in The Indianapolis 
yournal in the year 1854 ' '^^'' Butler having purchased 
a controlling interest in that newspaper. In the year 
1854 ^^^ Republican part}" was organized out of the 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 1 5 

anti-slaveiy men of all parties, and took bold ground 
upon the subject, and the Journal became its organ. 
Parties, like colleges, are not created ; they grow. 
They have their origin in a strong and general public 
sentiment, and he who occupies the foreground and be- 
comes prominent at an early da}^, may be regarded as 
the originator and the organizer, when he merely went 
along with the multitude and in front. " When two 
men ride a horse, one must needs ride behind," though 
both mount at the same time. The great movement 
against slavery was the voluntary and spontaneous im- 
pulse of those who abhorred the institution and who loved 
freedom. These men needed no teacher or apostle or 
forerunner. Years of experience and observation had 
ripened their conclusions and iixed their purposes, and 
when the first opportunity offered they rallied with un- 
erring certaint}^ upon their candidates and made, 
almost without debate or discussion, their platforms. 
The influence Mr. Butler exerted upon public sentiment 
was great and beneficent. He ranged in the higher 
walks of politics, steadfastly and intelligently advanc- 
ing the great ideas, then unpopular, which have since 
become the universal policy of the nation. He lived to 
see his principles written upon the ' banners of our 
armies and gleaming in the lightning of a thousand bat- 
tles ; to see them embodied in the Constitution and 
hailed with delight wherever free government has an 
advocate. 

Mr. Butler gave further evidence of devotion to his 
principles by aiding in the establishment of a free-soil 
paper in Cincinnati, and, taking a wider range when 
Kossuth came preaching the gospel of liberty for down- 
trodden Hungary, he again opened his liberal purse for 
humanit}^. 

But he sought quiet and retirement. Many years ago 
he removed his residence from his old home in town to 



i6 founder's day. 

his farm north of, and be3'ond its Hmits. Here, among 
and in the shade of the great walnut, ash, sugar and elm 
trees, he built his house, and here he spent the remain- 
der of his years. Here, walking or sitting beneath these 
grand representatives of the primeval forest might be 
seen his venerable form fitly protected by their shadows. 
Here he received his friends and welcomed them to his 
hospitable board. Here his family assembled, his chil- 
dren and his children's children, to enjoy his society and 
to pay respect to his wishes. Here he communed with 
nature and refreshed his spirit. You may buy villas and 
palaces, or build them where you desire, but you can 
not build or plant great trees. You must go to them as 
you would go to the mountain or the sea. He did this — 
he brought his children to them ; he had them build 
their homes near him and near them ; he had this Uni- 
versity planted there also among these great sentinels of 
the past, sometimes roaring in the wintry storm, and 
sometimes whispering with the breath of June ; budding 
and shaking their green chaplets in the air and then 
blushing at the coming of autumn and casting them to 
the bosom of earth. 

The appearance of Mr. Butler was not striking. Of 
about the average height, as he walked he leaned for- 
ward, as if in thought. His eye was bright and cheerful, 
and the expression of his countenance was sedate, indica- 
tive of sound judgment, strong common sense, an unruf- 
fled temper, a fixedness of purpose and kindness of heart. 
His' voice was not powerful or clear, his delivery was 
slow and somewhat hesitating ; but such was the matter 
of his speech, so clear, cogent, apt and striking, that he 
compelled the attention of his hearers. The weight of 
his character, the power of his example, the charm of a 
life of rectitude and purity, gave a force to his words, 
which, coming from an ordinary man might not have 
been so carefully heeded. Emerson says, " It makes 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 1 7 

a great difference to the sentence whether there be a 
man behind it or not." He was a Httle sh}^ and unob- 
trusive in his manners, especiall}^ among strangers, but 
to his old friends, cordial, winning and confiding. He 
avoided controversies, kept quiet when they were im- 
pending, and conciliated by his decorous forbearance 
those who, by active opposition, would have been 
roused to hostility. 

Stronger than all other features of his character was 
his unaffected piety. For many j^ears of his life he was 
an humble and devoted Christian, illustrating in his 
daily walk and conversation the principles he professed. 
Devout without display, zealous and charitable, he 
placed before and above all other personal objects and 
considerations, his own spiritual culture ; looking to 
that true and ultimate refinement which, begun on earth, 
is completed in Heaven. 

The great and memorable work of Mr. Butler was 
connected with the North Western Christian University, 
now called " Butler University." He, with many 
friends, had for some years contemplated the establish- 
ment of this institution, and in the winter of 1849-50 ob- 
tained the passage of a charter through the legislature 
of this State. Mr. Butler drafted it and had the credit 
of giving expression in it to the peculiar objects of the 
University. The language of the section defining them 
is as follows : "An institution of learning of the highest 
class for the education of the youth of all parts of the 
United States and of the Northwest ; to establish in said 
institution departments or colleges for the instruction of 
the students in every branch of liberal and professional 
education ; to educate and prepare suitable teachers for 
the common schools of the country ; to teach and incul- 
cate the Christian faith and Christian morality as taught 
in the sacred Scriptures, discarding as uninspired and 
2 



lO FOUNDER S DAY. 

without authority all writings, formulas, creeds and arti- 
cles of faith subsequent thereto, and for the promotion 
of the sciences and arts." As to intellectual training, 
this calls for a high standard. As to religious teaching, 
it is radically liberal. 

Not content with inculcating the truths of the Gospel, 
an assault is to be made upon creeds and articles of 
faith. They are to be discarded ; to be repudiated ; to 
be rejected, as the word of man and not inspired by 
Divinity. This contains the essence of the irrepressi- 
ble conflict that will continue until the Gospel is stripped 
of every appendage of ceremony and doctrine, and the 
church returns to the primitive simplicity of the disci- 
ples ; until the Inspired Word, in its purity, shall gO' 
forth untrammeled to meet the doubters and mockers 
and scoffers who assail it. 

But Mr. Butler was not an aggressive reformer. His 
gentle nature had no taint of acrimony or intolerance in 
it. While he entertained, announced, and adhered to 
his own views with unalterable tenacity, he exercised 
toward all who disagreed with him an ample Christian 
charity. He was not a sectarian in the narrow and 
offensive sense. He w'as willing to wait patiently for the 
gradual and slow changes of public opinion as truth was 
developed. 

Far-reaching reforms begin quietly, with cool and 
sagacious men, who msereh^ live long enough to see 
them perfected ; who submit their propositions to the 
public judgment and leave them for adoption or rejec- 
tion, well satisfied, that at least, mankind will travel up 
to and accept them. 

Mr. Butler soon after the charter was granted, united 
with the friends of the project in placing the University 
on a substantial basis. It was necessary to have a sub- 
scription of seventy-five thousand dollars in order to 
begin the work. John O'Kane, a man of great influence 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 1 9 

and singular eloquence and social power, was put in the 
field as the general agent of the proposed corporation ; 
and in June, 1852, reported to the commissioners sub- 
scriptions amounting to seventy-five thousand two hun- 
dred dollars. The labors of Elder O'Kane were of 
inestimable value in rousing up a deep and permanent 
interest in the institution, by his fervent and powerful 
addresses in all parts of this State. When he had done 
all that could be in the line of his duty, Mr. Butler, by a 
subscription largel}^ in excess of any other person, by his 
constant labors as President of the Board, by correspon- 
dence, by personal appeals, by conversation and by su- 
perintendence, contributed to the establishment of the 
institution so much, that all of his associates were proud 
to recognize him as the founder and father. 

For twenty years he served as President of the Board 
of Directors, and in 1871, at the age of seventy, he re- 
tired from the office, saying in his letter of resignation: 
" I have given to the institution what I had to offer of 
care, of counsel, of labor, and of means, for the purpose 
of building up, not merely a literar}^ instituti' n, but for 
the purpose of building up a collegiate institution of the 
highest class, in which the divine character and the su- 
preme Lordship of Jesus, the Christ, should be full}^ 
recognized and carefully taught to all the students, to- 
gether with the science of Christian morality, as taught 
in the Christian Scriptures, and to place such an insti- 
tution in the front ranks of human progress and Chris- 
tian civilization as the advocate and exponent of the 
common and equal rights of humanity, without distinc- 
tion of sex, race or color. 

He had fought the good fight, he had adhered to his 
purpose, he had not labored in vain. But for ten years 
more, and until his death, he gave the University his 
attention and his best thought. He had devoted so many 
years of his life and so much of his energy to this pur- 



20 FOUNDER S DAY. 

pose, that it had become the habit of his being to promote 
and protect the interests of the University. His influence 
and his spirit are still as powerful as ever there. Ab- 
sence, silence and death have no power over them. 

" I still live," were the dying words of one of the 
greatest men of our nation. His friends love to repeat 
them from year to year as a detiance to death. He 
does live and manage, though helpless in the grave. 
Some men work for their present enjoyment, for 
wealth, for fame and for power ; others for the future 
and for the good of men. This is a small class ^ and of 
necessity so. For the majority must work for bread, 
must pay their debts and must support families ; that is 
all and often more than they can do well. Still there 
are not a few, who, being able to do more and better, 
confine their exertions to the procurement of pleasure, 
to the excitements of hilarity, gaiety, social displays and 
convivial meetino-s. 

Ovid Butler was not one of these. He did not run to 
the mountains, or the seaside, or Saratoga for happiness. 
His residence, his carriage and his dress were plain. 
He gratified his taste, but it was an exalted one. The 
campus of a college, his gift to men, was to him a finer 
show than deer parks or pleasure grovmds. The solid 
walls of the Universit}' were more pleasing than a 
palace, carved and polished and decorated for his own 
comfort. He delighted to look upon well-trained men 
and women, rather than pictures and statuar}^. He pre- 
ferred to gather the 3'oung and docile of the human race, 
and put them on exhibition, rather than short-horns or 
Morgan horses, and yet he did not despise or underrate 
these other good things. He gratified a refined and 
ennobled taste when he selected the man for culture and 
not the animal. But it was not all a matter of taste ; he 
looked much farther than that. He loved cultivated men 
and women for their uses ; for their power and capabilit}' 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 21 

to do good ; to teach the truth ; to set examples ; to lead 
men from vice and ignorance ; and to give them strength 
and encouragement. And so he put forth, for many of 
the best years of his life, his constant exertions to build 
up a great institution of leai-ning, in which the principles 
of human freedom and of Christianity should be taught 
forever. He did not die without the sight. He inspired 
many to unite with him in the work, and has laid a foun- 
dation, in a place and in a way, that, so far as we can 
see, will be perpetual for great good. 

To establish the leading institution of learning at the 
Capital of a great State is no slight achievement. And 
it may safely be said that his name in Indiana will be 
what that of Harvard or Yale or Cornell is in the East. 
-Mr. Butler had ambition, and it was associated with his 
labors for this institution. Some men are frivolously 
ambitious of great offices, and prominent positions, and 
newspaper notoriety ; others thirst for political power ; 
or to found a great famil}^ ; or for the management of 
affairs ; or for the exercise of influence in public business. 
H^is ambition was to make this institution as liberal, 
as thorough, and as beneficent as anyone anywhere. 
His ambition was impersonal, but it burned him for 
many years, giving him no rest, till he had put his great 
project beyond a question as to its success. But higher 
motives than these inspired him. He believed in the 
equal rights of men and women ; that all should be free ; 
that all should be educated alike ; that all should be 
taught the elements of the Christian religion without 
creed or theology except God's Holy Word. He put his 
faith and creed in the charter of the Universitv, and upon 
these stones he builded. His taste, his ambition, and 
his conscience acting in harmony, carried him forward 
and over all the obstacles he met. 

The equal education of men and women in this insti- 
tution was provided for when every other American col- 



22 FOUNDER S DAY. 

lege but Oberlin denied it, and at that time was re- 
garded as an odious and dan'gerous innovation. But now 
the system is generally adopted and found to be advan- 
tageous. That it should ever have been otherwise 
seems surprising. That the young of both sexes should 
be associated in their education seemed to Mr. Butler 
just as proper as their association in churches, in social 
life or in families. Only a few colleges are now afflicted 
Avith boards of trustees, who are so far ahead or so far 
behind the mass of our people, that they refuse to act 
with them, and who may share the fate of many a buried 
conservative by being left behind or run over. One 
thing is certain, the world will not wait for those cau- 
tious gentlemen to make up their minds. And the}' 
may find themselves like the sand bars now resting on 
the hilltops of Southern Indiana, a hundred feet above 
the stream, and far from its banks, while the living 
waters have cut other channels and are carrying ver- 
dure and fertility to distant plains below. 

That women should be trained for profitable employ- 
ment in business of all kinds and in the professions, is 
no longer questioned. No one will now assert, as it 
was formerly done, that "woman's mission was to 
chronicle small beer and suckle fools." No education 
can reverse the laws of nature and drive women from 
the discharge of their domestic duties. They will be 
women, the heads of households and the guides of 
childhood, however trained and educated. That they 
should be fitted to trade, keep books, to superintend 
factories, to make calculations, to edit newspapers and 
magazines, to teach all human knowledge, to preach, to 
lecture, to discuss political questions, to practice medi- 
cine, to practice law, to vote, to hold offices, and to 
co-operate with men in all the affairs of life, seems just 
as fair as that they should be taxed to hire men to do 
some of these things, and safely confined to the wash tub, 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 23 

the sewing machine, the kitchen and the milliner shop, 
while men do all the remainder of the profitable work. 

The outcry raised against the co-education of the 
young was, that women would become immodest — for- 
ward and rough. But that has been exploded by ex- 
perience, as a diminutive bubble filled with harmless 
gas. Had these prudish guardians of female modest}^ 
looked around, they would have found in society a 
living and overwhelming refutation of their theory. 
The Society of Friends, numbering many ^thousands 
of the most quiet, modest, orderly, decent, temperate, 
honest and virtuous men and women of the land, stand 
as a living witness against all who tremble at equal 
training and equal participation in the affairs of busi- 
ness by men and women. In that society they stand as 
God has made them, upon terms of perfect equality, and 
nobody can deny or overlook the happy result. 

The great value of the work of Mr. Butler in the es- 
tablishment of the University, is in the broad and lib- 
eral principles of its organization and the comprehen- 
sive system contemplated. It is a good work to build 
a fountain for the public, to plant an avenue of trees, to 
dedicate a park, to erect a monument, to build an ob- 
servatoiy, to found a hospital or asylum ; but these, how- 
ever well planned and endowed, are comparatively lim- 
ited and local in their benefits ; they are special in their 
application and narrowed in their objects ; but a great 
university ranges in its blessings through all classes and 
conditions of society ; opens the ways of true progress 
to large numbers ; lifts the young from the plane of 
mere animal and brutal development to the true educa- 
tion ; prepares men and women for the severest trials of 
life in every conceivable situation, and trains for the 
greatest labors and achievements whoever has the cour- 
age, constancy and ability to attempt them. Not only 
gives training in the classics, the exact sciences and 



24 FOUNDER S DAY. 

general literature, but in all possible applications of 
scientific knowledge to the arts, to mechanism, to agri- 
culture, to engineering and architecture, and in addition 
to the entire systems of legal, medical and theological 
studies. There can be no possible branch of human 
development that does not come properly under the care 
of a university. It expands in its benefits with the 
growth of society and the progress of mankind. It 
covers that vast field of individual uplifting which 
widens into the illimitable expanses of national and race 
improvement. Upon this foundation must the suc- 
cessors of Mr. Butler build. Did he make it too broad? 
Could he make it too broad? (is a more appropriate 
question). Is there any limit to the demand for prop- 
erly trained men and women? Some may say that tJie 
learned professions, as they are called, are over- 
crowded ; but who is ready to say that they are too full 
of learned and thoroughly capable members? These 
professions may be crowded, but all able preachers, 
teachers, editors, engineers, doctors, lawyers and au- 
thors will franklv admit that they all fall far short of 
their capabilities in culture, intelligence, aptitude, skill 
and enterprise. 

But outside of these professions what room there is for 
improvement I What valid reason can be given why the 
farmer, the manufacturer, the merchant, the man of 
commerce, the banker and the railroad man, should not 
have equal training in d. general way with the profes- 
sional man? Their responsibilities are as great, their 
duties in life as citizens are identical, the services that 
each can render mankind are equal. To say that one 
man can dodge his duties, by the plea that he is humble 
and poor and must labor for his bread, is to admit that he 
is inferior personally, a serf, a servant, or a menial ; a 
tliought so revolting that no American can entertain it 
without a shudder. One employment should be as 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 25 

honorable as another in the eyes of all men, and will be 
when all are properly educated. 

If this may not be true, civilization and Christianity 
are failures ; the bills of rights in our constitutions are 
frauds, and all the ideas of human equality gilded lies. 
If our education tends to make idlers and loafers, men 
and women too proud and lazy to work for a living, then 
we had as well close the school houses and allow a great, 
ignorant, unambitious, hard-working class to grow up to 
do the drudgery. But every impulse of our nature re- 
volts at such an idea. This notion was the corner-stone 
of human slavery, and is as hateful when applied to men 
who have personal liberty as to those who were bought 
and sold in the market like live stock. As well denounce 
the use of labor-saving machinery as the complete co- 
education of every man and woman. Place this side by 
side with their moral training and you have that perfect 
society contemplated by the wase and good, by the sages 
and prophets, as coming in the latter days of earth ; you 
have that golden age in which peace shall reign and jus- 
tice be done by all to all. Unbelieving housewives fear 
that there will be no servant girls and errand boys, and 
unbelieving mechanics that there will be no " cubs " and 
apprentices in that happy era, and that so, societ}^ will 
come to a stand-still and humanity prove to be an awful 
failure ; that with too much education nobody can be 
found to do the work ; that the race of bootblacks and 
hostlers will become extinct ; that the curry-comb will 
be turned into a lily, and the dish-rag into a sunflower, 
and the human race shall learn to labor no more. 
Let the infidels have faith. Humanity has proved 
equal to every emergency as it has come on, and found 
a way through. And it seems hardly possible that after 
weathering so many storms the old ship should split on 
this rock. There is one secret that these hyper-humani- 
tarians may yet learn, and that is that somebody is 



26 founder's day. 

always ready and willing to do any work if tfe«jsrare- 
weil paid. 

When we remember that under the age of fift}- 3'ears 
Mr. Butler retired from business and devoted all the 
remainder of his life to labors of benevolence — to the 
good of others — to the cause of humanity — to the work 
of education — to the propagation of Christian religion, 
we get the key to his character. At this time of life 
most men are in the very midst of the race, are en- 
grossed in the accumulation of money, or nursing their 
selfish projects, or carrying out ambitious plans. Many 
are building or managing, or providing for their fami- 
lies, or traveling for pleasure, or enjoying their ease ; 
and by far the greater part are occupied by the constant 
battle for a subsistence, by the important question of 
ways and means for themselves and their children. But 
here is one who stopped in the midst of the race, who 
threw down his arms in the heat of battle, who shut his 
eyes to the prospect of great wealth, who would not lis- 
ten to the whispers of ambition, who put aside the 
sweetened cup of pleasure, and took up the burden 
which no one else could lift and carried it to the end. 

He saw that in his church some one must rouse him- 
self to the task and adhere to it faithfully, if a university 
was to be established. He looked around and found no 
one adequate but himself; without assumption or self- 
assertion or pride, he began the work, and never rested 
until it was put beyond any doubt as to its success. 
The church to which he belonged, though having a 
numerous and influential membership, had not many de- 
nominational institutions of learning, had not a large 
number of educated professional clergymen, and stood 
in great need of the projected institution. Bethany' 
College in Virginia could not supply the demand, was 
situated in a slave State and was under the influence of 
slave-holders. And all of the learning, eloquence, zeal 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 



and propagating power of its president, Alexander 
Campbell, aided by a learned corps of professors, could 
not satisf}'- the ardent longings of the 3^oung men of the 
Christian church for a thorough education in a free State, 
inspired b}^ the principles of human equality and per- 
sonal liberty. And so the North Western Christian 
Universit}^ arose to meet a loud and growing demand 
made by this great religious denomination. There was 
no college at Indianapolis. Young men and women in 
large numbers were going elsewhere seeking an educa- 
tion. The center of the State, its most prosperous city, 
its most accessible point, and its beautiful ^tuation, were 
facts that aided largely in determining the location. 
Here was the place, this was the time, here was the man ; 
the people were in expectation and the project became 
a fact — no small fact in the history of Indiana. A fact 
that, by proper management, will be one of the ver}^ 
greatest in all future times to us here in Indiana. Wh}^ 
shall not, in the coming years, the same associations 
arise at the mention of the name of Irvington, that now 
spriug up when we hear of Heidelberg, or Oxford, or 
Cambridge, Boston, New Haven or Princeton? 

The devotion of Mr. Butler, at a period of life when 
there seemed to be so much for him to accomplish for 
himself and so much to enjoy, to a great unselfish pur- 
pose, approaches in its quality Mr. Gladstone's defini- 
tion of true moral heroism. Not long since, in his 
lecture on the life of Doctor Hook, the Dean of Chiches- 
ter, he said that " A man to be a hero must pursue ends 
beyond himself. He must pursue them as a man, not a 
■dreamer ; he must not give to some one idea a dispro- 
portionate weight which it does not deserve, and forget 
everj^thing else which belongs to /the perfection and ex- 
cellence of human nature. If he does all this he is a 
hero, even if he has not very great powers ; and if he 
has great powers then he is a consummate hero." 



28 founder's day. 

Mr. Butler had nothing in his character or career that 
was dramatic, dazzHng or thrilling-, but he had that 
quiet devotion to a noble purpose that animated such 
men as Martin Luther, William Penn and Roger Wil- 
liams, " giving intensity to his purposes and carrying 
them on to the close of his lite." The ends he pursued 
were "beyond himself." He looked into the far-off 
future to see gathered in this place men and women of 
the highest cultivation and of the most exalted charac- 
ters for purity, whose sole purpose should be to impart 
truth ; to see gathered about them thousands of the ris- 
ing generations gladly accepting their teachings. He 
looked to see, as the result of his labors, the benign in- 
fluence of this institution shed over this great central 
community of the continent, as the ra^^s of the sun. 

When it was proposed by his friends to change the 
name of the Universit}^ from the North Western Chris- 
tian to Butler, he opposed it, and it was done over his 
protest. Most men want their names written on their 
works ; give gilts, make endowments, build public es- 
tablishments, fight battles with books, advocate great 
measures, and lay down their lives for " the whistling of 
a name." But here is a man who wanted it blotted out 
from the great title page of his work. Here was a 
founder, a forei'unner, a torch bearer, who was only 
pleased with the success of his eflbrts. It was said b}^ 
Dr. x\rnold, of Rugby, that " every nation has its an- 
cient and modern history, irrespectively of the chrono- 
logical place which such a nation may hold in the gen- 
eral succession of events." In other words, that nations 
live not by 3'ears, but by events. 

In the same vein Dean Stanley spoke in 1878, at Bir- 
mingham, soon after his visit to this country, in his 
famous address on " The Historical Aspect of the United 
States." He said, "The 3^outh of a nation is also its 
antiquity. The youth of America coiTesponds to the 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 29 

antiquity of Europe. It is a characteristic which, in a 
larger measure, it shares with Russia, but which in 
Amei^ica is brought to a nearer focus from the shortness 
of the career it has hitherto run." Passing in review 
the great epochs in our history he says, "What I have 
said of the history of America at once illustrates and is 
illustrated by some of the chief characteristics of the 
present condition of the United States and also of our 
expectations of it in the future. 

"Look, for example, at the extraordinary munificence 
shown in the muhiphcation of institutions emanating in 
a large degree Irom the piety and liberalit}^ of individual 
founders and benefactors. The very phrase which I 
use recalls the mediaeval beneficence out of which sprang 
some of the chief educational institutions of our own 
countr}'. I do not sa}?- that this munificence has died 
out of the nineteenth century at home or in other coun- 
tries. In one branch, that of public libraries for general 
use, which is the chief glor}^ of the modern institutions 
of the United States, as its almost total absence is the 
chief reproach to the metropolis of London — in these 
public libraries I understand that at least in Birming- 
ham a near approach has been made to the generosit5'% 
whether of corporations or individuals, in the United 
States. Still the freedom, almost the recklessness, with 
which these benefactions are lavished beyond the Atlan- 
tic, bears upon its face the characteristic of an older 
age, reappearing amid our modern civilization like 
the granite bowlder of some earlier formation. For the 
likenesses in our history to John Howard, to the ' ten 
worthy fathers ' of Yale, to Johns Hopkins and Astor, 
George Peabody and Peter Cooper, we must look to 
our Wykehams, our Waynefletes, our Wolseys at Ox- 
ford, and those whose names are immortalized in Gray's 
splendid ode on the benefactors of Cambridge." 

The great British clergyman realized how much is 



30 FOUNDER S DAY. 

crowded into the life of our people only when brought 
face to face with them by personal inspection. He saw 
that we compress into a single age the middle ages and 
the present, the work of the fathers and founders of 
great institutions, and their mighty results and benefits. 

The "building up of an institution of learning of the 
highest class," " for the instruction of students in every 
branch of liberal and professional education," as the 
charter provides, contemplates a vast and noble work, 
not to be accomplished in one age, not to be completed 
by its founders, but to grow in usefulness and in influ- 
ence ; to expand in its system, to adapt itself to the 
progress of mankind, to lead off in the march of im- 
provement, to outgrow society. It must have greater 
endowments, a wider range of instruction, more com- 
plete libraries, and more commodious buildings. 

But in addition to these things it must fight success- 
fully the strong tendencies toward animalism and bru- 
tality that prevail in many similar institutions, especially 
in the old world, where dueling, boat-racing, hazing, 
boxing, wrestling, and sporting of various kinds have 
usurped the place of intellectual contests, and instead 
of the refining rivalries of scholars, tlie vulgar struggles 
of athletes and bullies are witnessed. Fortunately for 
us, we have not a great., idle and wealthy class from 
which to supply this material, andean take timely warn- 
ing from those venerable institutions whose graduates 
obtain their greatest distinction on the cricket ground 
or in the boat-race, and not in the class room. 

Such is the mania for athletic sports in English col- 
leges, that standing is not regulated by scholarship, but 
skill and endurance in these arts to kill time. A very 
recent writer in the Atlantic Monthly on this subject 
aptly says, " Speaking again of the Universities, there 
are certain colleges, both at Oxford and Cambridge, 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 31' 

whose undergraduates actually pride themselves (or 
used to a few years ago) on being unrepresented on the 
honor lists, and who indignantly resent fancied attempts 
to make their institutions a ' reading college,' on the 
part of freshly elected fellows and tutors as a direct 
damage to its social prestige." * * ^- " So immense 
is the importance attached to physical prowess that the 
standard of a certain class of college in Oxford and 
Cambridge may, without exaggeration, be said to de- 
pend, to a certain extent, on the position of their boat 
in the river." 

Quoting from an advertisement of a rich landlord who 
desires to obtain a cheap residence abroad, he says : 
" I care for nothing but hunting, shooting and fishing." 
And from an account of the meet of a four-in-hand club, 
" It was a treat to see the way the Duke of B. brought 
up his coach in the unmistakable way of a master of the 
art. But then coachmanship is hereditary in his blood." 
At college these young men begin a career that con- 
tinues through life, of fox hunting, boating, base-ball 
playing, riding, shooting, coach driving and general 
jockeying. The rich, middle classes of England supply 
the material for accomplished gentlemen, who, after 
graduation in one of the most venerable coUeo-es and 
the most diligent course of study consistent with their 
amusements, can not paddle a canoe with the drunken 
Chippewas of Sault St. Marie, or shoot game with Buf- 
falo Bill, or hunt bear with an Arkansas rifleman, or 
ride with a Comanche, or handle the lines with a Cali- 
fornia stage driver ; and yet they can boast no other 
accomplishments, no other drill, no other- culture worth 
naming. It is vain for the professors to resist this ten- 
dency ; it has become overpowering ; it is the fashion ; 
it will spread to this country ; it has already done so in 
a measure, and threatensi to demoralize our greatest 
seats of learning. 



32 FOUNDER S DAY. 

We have man}^ wealthy men who have idle sons, and 
we will have many more. Nothing but firmness and 
constant effort can resist this demoralization. Our 3'oung 
collegians strive with their fellows every ^^ear on both 
sides of the ocean in rowing. They forget their studies 
or never begin them, they degrade their tastes, the}^ 
brutalize their natures, and yet timid and time-serving 
professors stand by and wink at the ruin. Our young 
men have energ}^, activity and enterprise bevond man}- 
nations, and their very impetuosity will lead them hastily 
into these follies. In former times in some colleges we 
had a class of these students, the sons of rich Southern 
planters ; their great effort seemed to be to kill time, and 
so continued in after life until death or bankruptcy inter- 
vened. To be useful was not in the category of their 
projects. But the tide of rich idlers now comes from the 
wealthy and prosperous men of the North. It is said 
of John Minor Botts, one of the most brilliant Vir- 
ginians of his day, that some years after he had studied 
law and raised the expectations of his friends, only to 
disappoint them, that he was asked why he did not prac- 
tice law. He replied that he had intended to do so, but 
" that the courts conflicted with the races, and he could 
not think of giving up the races." He was a fair t3'pe of 
the vigorous, idle and unproductive men our colleges 
sent out in all parts of the land. 

The cultivation of the mind and morals at the ex- 
pense of physical strength is a great mistake, and easily 
avoided ; a proper and rational amount of exercise can 
be obtained at no cost, without trouble. The gymna- 
sium, the green fields and the military drill are open 
doors for physical vigor to step into the colleges. But 
a sound mind without a sound bod}^ is better than a 
sound body without a sound mind. The foundations of 
health and strength are to be laid properly in the family 
and not to be destroyed in the school. 



BUTLER UNIVERSITY. 23 

To those provisions of the charter contemplating the 
instruction of teachers for the common schools and of 
students in every branch of liberal and scientific learn- 
ing, I have not referred. They cover an extensive 
field. At the date of granting this charter our State 
Normal School was not even contemplated as a possi- 
bility. Horace Mann had just achieved the great vic- 
tory of his great career, by the successful establishment 
of one for Massachusetts, over the most determined op- 
position and hostility of many teachers from whom he 
expected assistance. Our Agricultural and Mechani- 
cal College, at Lafayette, likewise was not conceived of 
till many years after this time. 

We have no schools of technology yet in the State ; 
audit remains for the friends of this institution to fix 
here those branches of instruction to which the public 
attention is being so strongly directed. It can not be 
denied:, that there is a rapidly growing tendency toward 
dispensing with classical studies and the adoption of a 
purely scientific and English literary course ; while if 
any foreign language is to be studied the preference 
seems to be for German and French. The range of 
scientific and technical studies is vastly greater than it 
was a century or two ago, when the regular and general 
curriculum of study in college was adopted. The ap- 
pUcations of mathematics to natural philosophy, chem- 
istry and astronomy have vastly increased and the physi- 
cal sciences have been almost entirely created. To 
master and complete all branches is a work of many 
years of hard study, and the limited means and time of 
many students confine them to specialties. They are 
anxious to complete, thoroughly, special studies. And 
to furnish facilities for this, the greatest University is 
needed. We must have it or look elsewhere for that 
which should flourish here. All the schools supplied by 
the State so far, common, high, normal, technical and 
classical, have fallen short of the demand. And there 
3 



J4 FOUNDER S DAY. 

is a wide field of usefulness upon the grounds contem- 
plated by the charter. 

The sphere of the usefulness of such an institution as 
this must forever enlarge with the growing wants of 
society ; it can not be limited, it can not be completed, 
but must continue like human nature itself in a perpetual 
state of development. When we look at the great uni- 
versities built painfull}^ and slowly upon much more 
narrow foundations, we can see what the future of this 
one must be. surrounded by the impulses, the enterprises 
and the inducements begotten of an irrepressible and 
progressive race. It was enough for one generation to 
lay only the foundations, leaving their successors the 
grateful task of piling up the great structure. 

It was a cherished purpose of Mr. Butler that he 
should live to see this great institution completed. At 
one time before the panic of 1873 it seemed as if his 
hopes were sure to be realized. Subscriptions to an am- 
ple endowment fund were easily obtained, and an early 
accomplishment of the project approached. But the 
revulsion in business, the frequent failures and bank- 
ruptcies reached, in their effects, all the avenues of so- 
ciety and checked the prosperity of the University some- 
what. His life was too short to enable him to witness 
the complete fulfillment of his hopes. After thirty years 
of care, help and superintendence, he laid down the 
burdens of life, at the age of eighty, leaving to his 
family the priceless heritage of a spotless reputation. 
Clarnm ct vcnerabile nonien. 

How fitting an emblem of human hopes is the broken 
column, not reaching halfway to the capital, even after 
fourscore years of successful effort ; for hope, like 
youth, is only broken by death. 

We come this day with reverent feet to lay the first 
chaplet on that broken column, believing that it will be 
done by other hands for ages to come near the sweet 
waters of this perennial fountain of learning and purity 
he loved so well. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



029 912 408 3 



